Fogel’s Flub: CSO Tries Hardball, Players Call Strike
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Fogel declined comment on the negotiations, but musicians say the three-year contract he put on the table asked the players to pay for a large portion of their health insurance, the cost of which has been increasing at about 20 percent a year. The musicians calculated that such a change would amount to a $2,000 give-back in the third year of the contract. Agreeing to Fogel’s health insurance demands, say negotiators on the musicians’ side, would also have set a dangerous precedent for future contract talks at other major orchestras, where according to the musicians’ research all health insurance has traditionally been paid for by the employer.
The CSO players were in no mood for give-backs after seeing Fogel spend liberally in other areas to make Barenboim happy in his first year on the job. They point, for instance, to Fogel’s decision to take John Corigliano’s Symphony no. 1 on a European tour, a choice that, according to the musicians’ calculations, added about $200,000 to tour costs for additional percussion instrumentation and ten more musicians. “We’re not telling Fogel how to spend his money,” snorts Vosburgh, “but I don’t think he had to take that piece to Europe.” Fogel also raised the budget of the Civic Orchestra, the CSO’s training orchestra, from $400,000 last year to more than $600,000 this year.
If this were a strike at a widget factory, Fogel might have been able to hire replacement workers willing to accept his demands. But musicians aren’t easily replaceable, and Fogel, alas, can’t dismiss them en masse (the way Ronald Reagan, for example, did the air traffic controllers). So he’s going to have to find another way to reconcile their demands with the needs of the corporation. Executives at other arts organizations are sure to be watching what happens.
